Joining the 'Game'

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HBO
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March 26, 2013
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Valar Morghulis!

OK, "Game of Thrones" fans, the epic, ultra-violent fantasy series is back for a third season at 9 p.m. Sunday, March 31 on HBO. (And, yes, book readers, this season will include much content from "A Storm of Swords," which, as best as I can tell, is pretty much everyone's favorite George R.R. Martin book.)

It's not a spoiler to tell fans that characters in this series get killed off at a pretty high rate, and new characters get added almost as quickly. For instance, book one of "A Song of Ice and Fire," has 224 characters (!) with speaking parts.

How to keep track of them all? It's a difficult task, especially on the TV show, where few characters are introduced by name; incest, betrayal and affairs have caused hopelessly complex family trees; and -- well, let's face it -- a decent portion of the cast looks like the same soiled, disheveled actor.

So, we're here to help. Without giving too much away, here are 10 new characters that should have a relatively major impact this season. Learn about them now, so when you meet them for the first time, you won't have to spend half the episode researching on westeros.org. --By Luke Broadwater